The Council will provide training for its staff dealing with the Children's Services complaints on the criteria to be applied when dealing with late complaints contained in the guidance 'Getting the best from complaints'. The Council will let us know when this training has been completed.

The Council has agreed to provide us with evidence of what action it has now put in place to ensure it:acts on written representations from foster parents;informs foster parents of the outcome of its review panels; andfollows its own policy on signposting foster parents to relevant fostering support when they are the subject of investigations.

the Council has also agreed to circulate a reminder to relevant staff of its duties under Section 17 of the Children Act 1989 and the circumstances when a Child in Need Assessment should be carried out, including where the individual affected has accessed the legal protocol for housing disrepair claims;the Council has also agreed to review its guidance to staff on handling complaints where the complainant is accessing the legal protocol for housing disrepair claims. The Council should make sure it is clear to staff when complaints about children’s social care services should be treated as separable from the legal protocol. This should make specific reference to the circumstances when children’s social care services complaints should be put through the statutory complaints process;the Council has also agreed to circulate a reminder to relevant staff that children’s social care services complaints that fall under the statutory complaints process should be treated as separable from housing disrepair claims. Those complaints that have completed the statutory complaints procedure may be considered by the Ombudsman if the complainant remains unhappy.